Another World, Another Lifetime
by DrummerDancer
Summary: She probably would've been happier if she'd never met him.


Title: Another World, Another Lifetime  
Author: drummerdancer  
Verse: None  
Characters/Pairings: Roy/Riza  
Word Count: 678  
Rating: K  
Summary: She probably would've been happier if she'd never met him.

* * *

The midday sun had long ago risen and left, blanketing the office in a dull orange as Roy continued to read, review, and sign paperwork. Each new sheet was read slower and slower, his eyelids falling just the tiniest bit further down until he had to forcefully stand up and shake off his weariness. It was grueling, mentally, but Roy reminded himself that there were far worse fates in life than sitting at a desk and reading.

A knock sounded at the door. Roy beckoned them in, welcoming the distraction.

"Sir. I'm leaving for tonight. Is there anything else you need?"

Hawkeye's voice was even and flat as it always was. She showed neither tiredness nor enthusiasm; just unwavering dedication, day after day, never faltering from her task. Roy felt his heart ache just a little as a picture of a young girl in pigtails playing in a yard danced through his mind; the picture of innocence and perfection, buried deeper and deeper as she suffered more and more.

He wondered if not for the first time what her life would've been like if her mother had survived; would she be the same cool and calm subordinate he had…or would she have never even joined the military? Perhaps her parents would've separated, as he long suspected they would have, and her mom would've taken her daughter away from the man with too many secrets and not enough places to hide them. Perhaps Riza would've then gone to an all-girls school and become a dancer or a musician, something society deemed 'feminine' and nonthreatening. Perhaps she would've been a completely different person, more happy, more excited, more _free_.

Vaguely, he wondered if, in a different world, Roy would've met that Hawkeye and courted her, much like he tried to in daily life. Would a Hawkeye who didn't bear the burden of her father and those around her have accepted his advances? Would she have fallen for him much like he had already fallen for her?

Roy stared past Riza in the doorway, trying to imagine her as somebody open and willing to receive love. Somebody who had never been hurt or betrayed, but loved like she deserved.

"No. I don't need anything. Go home; enjoy yourself."

She saluted sharply, though her impassive expression didn't change. The creases in her eyes and mouth were starting to set in; not even forty and already showing her years. And they weren't years of happiness; they were years of suffering, of horrors, of mistakes and murders and things nobody could walk away from unharmed. She should've had laugh lines, but because she'd met Roy, she had lines of sorrow and sadness.

And it was all Roy's fault.

She closed the door soon after, leaving Roy to his thoughts. He heard nothing but the dull roar of screaming and chaos, a background he had become accustomed to in his head. He wondered what Riza heard; did she hear them too, echoing off the insides of her head like rockets firing into the air? Or did she hear nothing, the memories scrunched and suppressed so tightly that she heard only the slightest ringing of a scream glance off the pinna of her ear?

The screaming, the horror, the mask of death…it was all on Roy's shoulders. He could stomach all of it, no matter how hard it got, because he had a goal, a dream that could become reality if he worked hard enough. And until he reached it…she would turn him down. Again and again, always without explanation or cause. And Roy was beginning to understand why.

No matter how it was spun, Riza would be a liability as a lover, something that could hold him back. And, if he didn't reach their goal…if he _failed_…

They would both hate him. And he _wasn't_ strong enough to bear that.

He sighed, picking his pen back up as he began to sign again. He knew it could be worse…but sometimes, he wished he could pick those fates over his.


End file.
